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How Big Is The U.S. Debt?

As unchecked government spending continues to grow, our nation’s debt is quickly spiraling out of control. In early February we reached a new milestone, $19 trillion of debt obligations. This massive number is larger even than the entire economic output of the United States, which stands around $18 trillion annually.

However, that isn’t the full story of America’s unfunded obligations. Including expected future tax revenues, the U.S. has currently promised nearly $70 trillion dollars in Social Security and Medicare payouts that it can’t afford. This brings the total debt and unfunded obligations of our country to nearly $90 trillion!

That staggering number is 40% higher than it was just 5 years ago. And if those numbers don’t scare you already, this next one will. The complete annual economic output of entire planet is only $80 trillion. The productivity of every human on Earth is $10 trillion LESS than the debt of the United States.

How can we grasp the sheer magnitude of this burden, and the significance of its impact on our jobs and families? Our friends at Learn Liberty created a video to help visualize our nation’s debt, and the image is shocking: